Contact: Brandon Weathersby, brandonw@wisdems.org, 608-260-2409

MADISON — Wisconsin Republicans are right to “worry about a crowded Senate primary” and it’s just not the number of candidates that’s the problem – it’s their baggage. Take Kevin Nicholson and the coverage he’s earned, all before he’s even formally said if he’ll run. No wonder an out-of-state Republican mega-donor is funneling money into a super PAC to help Nicholson out – he needs it. Though it’s telling that his best supporter isn’t even from Wisconsin… Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Potential U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson took few visible actions on veterans home concerns

  • “A state’s veterans board member and potential U.S. Senate candidate didn’t directly respond to safety concerns that critics raised to him about Wisconsin’s largest veterans home over the past four years, a Journal Sentinel review of his emails shows.”
  • “Critics are questioning whether Nicholson, a member of the state Department of Veterans Affairs board, did enough to look into claims of poor care for King’s nearly 700 residents.”
  • “Nicholson didn’t attend a Veterans Affairs board meeting at King in July 2016 or respond to emails with concerns about the home going back to at least February 2013, according to emails released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel under the state’s open records law.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bice: Ex-college roommate chides Republican Kevin Nicholson over probable U.S. Senate bid

  • “The public vetting of probable U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson is getting a little messy… Now, one of Nicholson’s former college roommates at the University of Minnesota has begun attacking him on social media.”
  • “In the post, Tillotson said his former roommate was obsessed with becoming president… Nicholson, he said, was also concerned about getting photographed drinking beer or kissing his girlfriend in public for fear it might be used against him one day.
  • Tillotson was most critical of the way he said Nicholson sometimes bullied or berated others, especially women.”

Fox 6: Potential GOP U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson faces questions about his past as a Democrat

  • “Republican Kevin Nicholson, a potential 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, is questioning the accuracy of documents that contradict his previous statements about his voting record as a Democrat.”
  • “Nicholson voted as a Democrat in North Carolina’s 2008 presidential primary, and has said he voted ‘no preference.’ Yet North Carolina voting records show that, among people who voted in-person in Nicholson’s precinct — as Nicholson did — no one voted that way.”
  • “Nicholson is fighting to maintain his conservative credentials ahead of a potentially crowded Republican U.S. Senate primary.”
  • “Nicholson finished last among six potential candidates in a Wispolitics.com straw poll of party activists at the convention, getting just 13 of the 296 votes, or 4 percent.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bice: Is Republican Kevin Nicholson testing different versions of his Democratic past? 

  • “Kevin Nicholson, a Republican weighing a possible bid for the U.S. Senate, has been a little unclear about his past as a Democrat.”
  • “Nicholson acknowledges in speeches that he was president of the College Democrats of America and spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. He then suggests he soon saw the error of his ways and became a solid Republican. But records show he registered as Democrat in North Carolina in 2005 and may have voted for a Democrat in the 2008 presidential primary, though he disputes it.”
  • “Now comes a new poll in which local voters are being asked about an unnamed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate — the description makes it obvious it is Nicholson — and his past ties to the Democratic Party, offering two conflicting scenarios.”

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bice: Two likely Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidates attacked anonymously

  • “The Republican primary for U.S. Senate is nearly 500 days away, and it’s already getting nasty.”
  • “Someone secretly set up a website aimed at undermining Nicholson. The page includes an edited version of Nicholson’s speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2000 when, as the national head of the College Democrats of America, he spoke out in favor of abortion rights and endorsed Vice President Al Gore’s presidential bid.”
  • “…Nicholson, a U.S. Marine veteran and businessman, has [not] declared [his] candidacy. Nobody has on the Republican side. But that doesn’t matter because the stakes in the race are so high.”

See also:
Associated Press: Wisconsin Republicans worry about crowded Senate primary
USA Today: Schneider: GOP Senate primary voters will demand a real conservative
Associated Press: Wisconsin GOP Senate candidates’ vote records may haunt them
WisPolitics.com: Nicholson defends political conversion, pressed on ’08 Dem prez primary vote
Read this release on WisDems.org

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